Nexon pledges to focus on game development

By Yoon Sung-won

Nexon, the nation’s largest online game company, pledged Friday to invest more in developing games.

It said it will refrain from management activities centered on acquisitions and money-making.

During a preview event of its exhibition at the “G-Star 2014” game show scheduled to open next week in Busan, the company said it aims to remove its stigma as a “money hugger.”

“We want to show that we are a company which can produce novel and entertaining games, not one that only milks cash from our existing titles,” said Chung Sang-won, Nexon’s game development vice president. “So far, we have at times been driven by a sense of urgency to hurriedly roll out a title even when we could do better. But we will avoid doing so from now on to become one of the best game companies in Korea.”

The company unveiled a bold marketing slogan dubbed, “The Donxon Strikes Back,” a parody of Hollywood sci-fi movie Star Wars’ fifth episode. “Donxon” is a compound word derived from “don,” which means money in Korean, and “xon” from Nexon. The expression is widely used by Korean gamers in online communities when blaming the company for being “obsessed with money”.

The company said it wants to end this viewpoint.

“We are determined to put an end to our bad name by presenting more well-crafted games,” Nexon’s business division chief Lee Jung-hun said.

The company, however, did not directly answer local gamers’ claims that many of the company’s games have aggressive monetization models which leave no options but to repeatedly spend money to continue to play.

“The company has to come up with good games to change the concept about us,” Chung emphasized.

Nexon said it will display 10 self-developed and five cooperatively published games at the event next week, the largest-ever for the company.

The 10 self-developed ones include card game “Mabinogi Duel;” action role-playing games “Maple Story 2,” “Preta,” “The Land of Wild: Durango,” “Peria Chronicles” and “Legion of Heroes: Raid;” real-time strategy games “King Gwanggaeto the Great” and “Domination,” and the shooting games “Sudden Attack 2” and “Ghost in the Shell Online.”

Nexon also said it will publish Korean games such as role-playing game “Closers,” “Arpiel,” “Aima,” “Tree of Savior” and an action game “Hyper Universe.”

Nine of the 15 titles are PC-based online games. The company said it still has faith in the online segment, whose popularity is rapidly being replaced by mobile games.

“We understand online games require more investment of money, time and human resources to develop and operate. Consequently companies need to bear a heavier burden of failure, making more Korean game firms turn to the less-risky mobile sector,” Chung said. “But we believe that remaining competitive in the online sector is still important and we will continue to maintain a balance.”

Nexon CEO Park Ji-won added the company has set next year as an important turning point and will release the largest number of new titles to seek a sustainable growth.